


unnoticed

by Areiton



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Co-Parenting a Teenage Aracnid, M/M, Platonic Relationships, Platonic Soulmates, Protective May Parker (Spider-Man), Protective Tony Stark, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony and May are bros
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-30 19:28:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19409863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/pseuds/Areiton
Summary: He notices it, but he doesn’t, not really. Not at first.~*~She notices, but she dismisses it.





	unnoticed

When he first notices it, it’s a tiny bruise on the inside of his elbow, and it blends with all the other bruises. He has bigger problems than a bruise that won’t heal up and go away--he has a shattered team, a kid trying his damndest to get himself killed, the Accords to fix, a best friend to put back together. 

He notices it, but he doesn’t, not really. Not at first. 

~*~ 

She doesn’t notice it until one of her co-workers nudges her arm, asks if she had some blood work done, and she laughs, shakes it off, shakes her head. The bruise is small, but it doesn’t hurt, and she doesn’t always remember where she picks up bruises, and she’s got too much to occupy her thoughts--the never-ending grief, the bills that never seem to be caught up, the boy she wants to protect who won’t stop lying to her. 

She notices, but she dismisses it. 

~*~ 

They don’t talk a lot. 

And then she finds out, after the ferry, after the Vulture, after the failed press conference. 

And she doesn’t talk, not really, not so much as scream, curse, shout, and, eventually, weep. And he takes it, he takes all of it, hands hanging between his knees, face blank and open and bare, and when she’s collapsed on his couch, and crying, he gathers her in his arms and says, “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.” 

The thing is--she believes him. 

~*~ 

The bruise grows, and she presses on it sometimes, but it never hurts, and it goes, as so many things do right now, unnoticed. 

~*~ 

They make it work. Raising a teenage superhero, a boy with a heart so big it makes her ache, a will so stubborn she worries when he goes toe to toe with Tony, and a love so boundless she thinks,  _ he could save the world.  _

They make it work. There are schedule and calendars, endless streams of texts and phone calls, constant negotiating. There are arguments about money and charity and the long hours she works, and how Tony solves problems. 

She gives ground, reluctant, proud, slow to bend but she thinks--Tony is a storm, and if she doesn’t bend, he will shatter her. 

~*~ 

Peter mentions it, while their in the lab. 

The bruise that won’t fade, that has darkened and spread. 

“It’s getting bigger,” he says, and his eyes are bright, knowing. Tony spears him with a sharp glance, and his gaze flicks down, down over Peter’s arms and comes up empty. 

“Stop picking and get to work on that formula,” Tony says, and his voice is sharp, but it’s fond and Peter’s grin is bright enough to light the room. 

~*~ 

He  _ likes _ May. 

She reminds him of Pepper--fierce and soft, never willing to take his shit, but always gentle when he needs it, protective but still vulnerable, still needing to be sheltered. He adores her, adores the way she fights with him, the way she burns everything she cooks, the way she is fiercely protective of the people she loves. 

It’s only when she punches a photographer who gets too close to them after dinner one night, after he hauls her away while Peter cackles and May spits Italian curses, after she drags him down to inspect his face, her hands firm and trembling, her eyes big and suspiciously bright, that he realizes--somewhere along the line, he became one of those people. 

~*~ 

“Are we going to talk about this?” Pepper asks, tracing her fingers over the bruise on the inside of his elbow. 

He looks at it, something he barely notices. 

It’s gotten bigger, more defined. A rough circles of spider-thin lines. It’s not a bruise, he thinks, resigned, and almost  _ almost _ delighted. 

~*~ 

Soulmarks are rare. There’s theories about them--that they appear when someone has the potential to change your life, on a level so profound that it  _ has  _ to leave a mark. 

Tony, for all the people in his life who have touched and shaped him, has only three--the one that formed after Rhodey dragged him home from a bar the first week at MIT, a rose wrapped around a bullet on the jut of his hip. A shattered heart that took  _ years  _ to develop, that matches the one Pep has on the delicate curl of her wrist. 

And this, a circle of spider silk dripping blood. 

“Who does it belong to?” Rhodey asks and Tony shrugs. 

It’s not Peter’s--but it touches on him. 

And he remembers, abruptly what Peter said, all those months ago. 

~*~ 

“Did you and Ben have a mark?” he asks and she looks up at him, startled. He gets it. It’s rude, asking about soulmarks. His are closely guarded secrets, and he lifts his shirt, shows him the shattered heart curling across his ribs. “You can’t see Rhodey’s,” he says, flashing a dirty smile. 

She turns and bares her shoulder for him and he sees the mark, pale against he skin, white now. It’s a moth, perched on a guitar and he aches for her, for the pale emptiness of it. 

“Do you have one for Pete?” he asks and she laughs. 

The mark is tucked behind her ear, a broken string and a spider bite and he laughs at it. 

Touches it with gentle, wondering fingers. 

“Are you gonna ask about it?” she asks, gentle, and he sighs. 

Rolls up his shirt to expose the mark on the inside of his elbow. 

She touches it, and he leans into her, into the solid strength of her. “I don’t have one for Pete,” he confesses, like a dirty secret. It’s strange to him, that he doesn’t. 

That she is marked into his skin and the kid that brought them together isn’t. 

“You will,” she says, simply, like it’s a fact of life. 

He believes her. 

~*~ 

Peter dies, and Tony doesn’t and sometimes, when he sees the ash white mark curling behind her ear, he thinks-- _ I’m glad I don’t have that memory to bear.  _

Sometimes, he hates her for having it. 

~*~ 

Morgan is inked into his skin in a starburst sun, golden and red and beautiful, spreading across his shoulder and creeping down his chest, so big and vibrant it took his breath away. 

May touched it, once, and she left him there, holding his daughter, and he cursed, kissed Pepper and chased her, chased her into the room that was still Peter’s, still, even after the years and dust and grief and growth. 

She curled on his bed, and  _ cried _ and Tony held her, this woman he never expect, this sister he always wanted, and never sought, held her as she wept for the son they lost. 

~*~ 

“There’s a chance,” he says, and she knows what he doesn’t say. 

What he would never say. 

There’s a chance to save Peter, but it might kill me. She doesn’t know how to chose, and Tony--Tony would never make her. He kisses her forehead and leaves her and she hopes. 

~*~ 

The string behind her ear flares with color and snakes  _ down, _ wraps around her throat and shoulders in delicious,  _ vibrant _ curls, and she weeps, staring at it, and she doesn’t notice, when the spider silk circle on the inside of her elbow goes white. 

~*~ 

He wakes up and he  _ hurts, _ but there is  _ Peter,  _ eyes bright and red and  _ alive _ and there’s a mark, a riot of color on the burnt skin of his arm,  _ covering it,  _ wrapping around the circle of spider silk on his elbow, and he thinks he cries, but May is there, and Rhodey and Pepper and Morgan is in Peter’s arms, so right and perfect there that he can barely breath. 

If he cries, none of them notice. 

  
  



End file.
